Look, Just Look at the Face of Justice

Following the March 18 Student Movement, Mr. Lin Yi-hsiung's fasting and wave after wave of protests impacted the government. The executive branch bore the brunt, with the Ma-Jiang regime constantly suffering setbacks; the legislative branch was not spared either, as the "Operation Cut the Appendices" is still going on. The face of justice remains blurred; the police, prosecutors, and courts present varied perspectives from every angle, and their modes of linkage differ.

From March 18 to March 24, anti-nuclear protests took to the streets, the Legislative Yuan was surrounded, and the police maintained a high state of alert and prolonged tension. The President, the Premier, and the police administration formed a trinity; the Director-General wields centralized command, making it difficult for local heads to have a say, and the Minister of the Interior seems relegated to the sidelines. The central government holds total control and logically should bear total responsibility, but the conventional mindset of pushing back public opinion remains unchanged, the methods of controlling police forces stay the same, and operational tactics are identical. Aside from wage increases, the internal police administration's issues regarding overwork remain completely unresolved.

Grassroots Police Officers Caught in a Pincer Attack

Consequently, calls for police officers to unionize are springing up everywhere. If unions can fight for rights and interests, then those who oppose this are truly the ones opposing the rights and interests of police officers. In other words, while it may appear on the surface that the people are standing in front of the shields, in reality, what stands in opposition to the police might not be the public, but rather the senior commanders they cherish. The high-ranking ruling authorities' habit of resisting public opinion, their methods of pushing back against the people, and their fear of police autonomy are the root causes of police overwork.

Furthermore, regarding the issue of police abuse of power, to be fair, the police should have long become the "subject of investigation." It is the police who make arrests, investigate evidence, and handle cases; leaving only the application of the law, the police should have long nurtured their own capabilities. Even if they cannot completely replace prosecutors, they could at least be placed on par as "dual subjects of investigation." However, one must respect oneself before others will respect them. Statutory provisions are merely superficial; the substance of the rule of law is what matters. Putting the cart before the horse, wielding petty authority as a big mandate, only brings suspicion from high-ranking officials and fear from the people. What is saddest is that for a long time, even the police have belittled themselves, shying away whenever they encounter the law.

Criminal investigation is a profession; it cannot be handled by just anyone. Proficient case-handling experience and skills must also be accompanied by an internalized procedural rule of law. Recently, from bloody beatings, using water cannons as toys, maliciously driving away reporters, arbitrarily confiscating loudspeakers, casually using zip ties, to making stealthy arrests of taxi drivers, there has been a relentless display of trampling on the rule of law, willingly serving as tools of errand, resulting in terrible public perception, low police status, and an increasingly distant prospect of becoming the subject.

What must be pointed out is that keeping the police in a prolonged state of low status prevents them from becoming the subject, easily reducing them to a "object" to be ordered around. Senior officials seem to do this intentionally because, as long as authoritarian mindsets remain unchanged, they will only desire tools that are obedient and easy to employ. Only through the awakening of their own rights consciousness can grassroots police officers truly have the mental effort and space to take "serving the people" seriously. Police unionization marks the beginning of autonomy, moving deeply toward nationalization, and furthermore, democratization and popularization.

Grassroots Mudslides and Senior-Level Musical Chairs

During this period, the image of the prosecutors hit rock bottom when seeking the detention of Wei Yang. Insisting on detention despite the failure to meet statutory requirements felt as though they were still living in the authoritarian era of "detaining people to extract confessions." Many within the prosecutorial camp itself found it unbearable, secretly cheering for the Taipei District Court's "immediate slap in the face."

Regarding the frequent protest activities, many scholars have publicly called for a unified legal interpretation to shoulder this new "historical collective responsibility," and some prosecutors hold the same view. Whether viewing it through the lens of the right of resistance, civil disobedience, grounds for excluding illegality, punishable illegality, or grounds for mitigating or exempting liability, substantive arguments are not impossible to find. Regarding procedure, non-prosecution or suspension of prosecution are not without methods. This seems to be the historical moment when the principle of "prosecutorial unity" ought to be most actively exercised.

Unfortunately, few listened. Just as grassroots prosecutors were laboriously facing the mudslide of public opinion, the Chief Prosecutor of the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office hurriedly departed, with media generally interpreting it as disrupting the Minister of Justice's "personnel arrangement." Regardless of the truth, if the Chief Prosecutor exhibits an attitude of not wanting to "bear the burden together," grassroots prosecutors will inevitably feel resentful. In this wave of major personnel reshuffles, if chief prosecutors only care about playing "musical chairs," with each case playing a different tune—much like the previous discretionary funds for high-ranking officials—resulting in inconsistent standards and widespread public grievances, where on earth is the image and trust of the prosecutorial system heading?

Naturally, judging by the Minister of Justice's previous statements, a policy stance of strictness and unwillingness to show leniency seems to have been adopted toward recent protest activities. Consequently, if chief prosecutors try to second-guess or follow instructions, the result of actively exercising "prosecutorial unity" will be top-down comprehensive investigations and crackdowns "blooming everywhere." If so, how much independent space and determination grassroots prosecutors—who hold a more tolerant attitude toward the movement—will have to strike a balance remains worth watching as we continue to follow developments.

The Quietly Changing Face of the Courts

Compared to the currently directionless prosecutors and the police who are exhausted from fielding inquiries from all sides, the courts have recently appeared much more "approachable." Going back a bit, from the conviction of Huang Shih-ming, the workers' victory in the closure-of-plants case, to the insistence on not detaining Chang Te-cheng; and looking at more recent examples such as refusing to detain Wei Yang and releasing him without bail, ruling that Liu Cheng-hung's defamation suit against a reporter was groundless, overturning the conviction of the San-Ying Self-Help Association under the Assembly and Parade Act, and acquitting all 11 individuals in the "anti-wind turbine" case—the courts seem to give an increasing sense of getting closer to public opinion.

Just like this, structurally, through the gradual establishment of external and internal independence, the courts have reserved space for judges to adjudicate according to law and conscience. Also through one "decision" after another, the courts are able to slowly accumulate the public's confidence in them. In contrast, the internal independence of the prosecutorial camp has been excessive to a fault, while its external independence has suffered severe blows and remains fragile; the police are neither internally nor externally independent, yet refuse to "grow up." These roughly describe the status quo of the "judicial production line."

If this morphological analysis is largely accurate, the courts are actually moving at twice the speed to break away from the prosecutorial system. It is said to be twice as fast because as the space for independent judicial adjudication gradually stabilizes, more and more judges are willing to delve into individual cases, refusing to skimp on granting greater protection to the people from a human rights perspective. Meanwhile, looking back at the prosecutorial system, after the mutual destruction of Tseng Yung-fu and Huang Shih-ming in their infighting, it remains shell-shocked.

Grassroots prosecutors are either at their wits' end or playing it safe, waiting for the moves and intentions of their superiors to weigh and judge how much independent space they have for handling cases, whether regarding legal interpretations or standards of leniency versus strictness. Coupled with the newly appointed Prosecutor-General and the yet-to-be-observed friction with the Minister of Justice, these factors could cause the prosecutorial system to stagnate in its future development.

Optimistically speaking, true "separation of adjudication and prosecution" may soon be realized. Pessimistically speaking, if grassroots prosecutors or chief prosecutors do not stand on their own two feet, "policeification" will become a point of no return; losing trust means their powers will be reclaimed one by one. Conversely, if the police can deeply reflect on themselves amidst this wave of shocks and challenges, it might just be an opportunity to reclaim their status as the "subject of investigation." By then, the name of the prosecutor may be reduced to nothing more than a public prosecutor.